Three current clamps, two ways to assign them
A Syway takes three current clamps. Assigning them to one machine or to three is a coverage trade-off, and it is settled before installation.
Photo: Raymond Sime / Unsplash, Licence Unsplash
The question always comes at the same moment: the hardware is there, the workshop is open, and someone has to decide where the clamps go. It looks trivial. In fact it determines what the site will be able to observe for months afterwards.
The two possible assignments
The Syway takes three current clamps, each measuring up to 500 amps without breaking the circuit. Two assignments are possible:
- All three phases of a single three-phase machine. The reading is complete on one piece of equipment.
- One phase on each of three machines. Coverage is wider, the per-machine reading more partial.
Neither is better in the abstract. They answer two different questions: understanding one machine, or watching a workshop.
How to decide
The criterion is not technical, it is economic: which machine costs you most when it stops? A line whose interruption blocks shipping is not watched the way three redundant conveyors are.
In practice, many sites begin with a complete reading on the critical asset and widen out from there. The first installation is mainly what teaches you what you actually want to watch on the next ones.
What the measurement reveals
At one value per second, the current curve shows abnormal overloads before they cause a stoppage. It also establishes the real utilisation rate of a machine, which a production schedule never provides.
The vibration data collected by the Sybox, the machine's mechanical signature, completes that reading. An emerging fault is rarely as visible on either measurement alone, and it is the combination of the two that the algorithms work on.
What installation asks of no one
The Syway sends nothing by itself: it talks over Bluetooth Low Energy to the Sybox, which carries the SIM card and the LTE-M link. Neither unit holds an address on the plant network, no traffic crosses the information system, and the design meets the requirements of the Cyber Resilience Act.
The deployment therefore depends on no network arbitration. The one decision that genuinely deserves thought is where the clamps go, and it takes ten minutes, provided it is taken before anyone climbs the platform.